What It Feels Like To Buy Pre-Cut Onions

By consumerist.comDecember 5, 2007

I bought pre-sliced onions at the supermarket last time I went food shopping. Just because it was totally stupid, and i wanted to know what it felt like to buy onions someone had thoughtfully chopped for me and placed inside a little plastic tub.

They were $1.73 for .6 lbs. By way of comparison, Fresh Direct will deliver uncut onions to your house for $1.99/lb. That means you don’t even have to get off the internet and they will bring an onion to your door for less than what this bucket of onions will cost.

So what was it like, to be among the group of what some call fools, others, visionaries, who buy already-chopped produce? In some ways, it was like a small luxury, like I had opted to buy Bass instead of Coors. Even within the confines of the experiment, a small part of me felt like I was clever, that I found some way to one-up the salad system. And within two days, I had made myself a salad and eaten it, whereas sometimes all the salad fixings rot before I get a chance to make a salad.

Even still , it was an extravagance, and one that I won’t be repeating. I have no problem chopping my vegetables. In fact, I enjoy it, the raw tactility, the pleasure in making something for oneself, the fact that I’m not paying $2.89/lb for onions…

No. Buying pre-cut onions is like getting the plastic bottles of miller because it is too hard to find a church key to open a glass bottle of good beer.

It is less of an extravagance than people might think–usually when pre-cut/pre-made produce is used, the taste of the food suffers. Of course, we cook so little that we don’t even really notice when food taste suffers.

How many people do you know who don’t like green beans? Broccoli? Asparagus? Brussel Sprouts?

How much do you want to bet that they formed their white-hot, searing hatred for those vegetables because they came in contact with their canned or frozen form?

How many people don’t like garlic because they have only come in contact with canned minced garlic and garlic salt?

We are in such a rush to convince ourselves that our time is valuable that we don’t stop to ask why it is valuable to us. Is it valuable because you do things you enjoy? Because you make things you can be proud of? or is it valuable as an exclusionary notion? Is it valuable because you know your wage rate and you add a premium to your free time?

*looks around embarrassed* I used to live on 182 Claremont, went to Fairway every week or so, and for a single guy, pre-cut veggies are pretty much the only way you would get me close to making vegetables of any sort for dinner. Seriously though, Fairway is amazing, one of the few enjoyable memories I have of 2 years in NYC. Chicago ftw!

/pretends like he doesn’t live in Boston at the moment.

@Elviswasntmyhero: What was wrong with American Gangster? I was no Godfather but its was damn good.

Um … why don’t you buy frozen chopped onion? Much cheaper, keeps forever, and you can just use a handful in recipes as you need it. I suppose the frozen ones wouldn’t be great for a salad, but for cooking with they’re great.

I have serious problems chopping onions, so unless I know my husband will be home to chop it for me, I buy the frozen chopped ones. So much easier.

@v12spd: “for a single guy, pre-cut veggies are pretty much the only way you would get me close to making vegetables of any sort for dinner.”

A chef I know (who doesn’t get to eat at home too often) told me he buys most of his veggies for home cooking off the salad bar, because there’s no way he’ll get through, say, an entire head of cauliflower when the recipe calls for only a couple, but he doesn’t want to have to avoid recipes because they only want a quarter of a pepper or whatever. It costs a little more per ounce than buying the “whole” veggie does, most of the time, but if you’re going to waste 3/4 of the whole veggie, paying a couple cents extra to get just the right portion seems like a great idea to me.

Now I feel all clever when I buy something off the salad bar because we couldn’t normally get through the entire full-sized one.

I am amazed at the prices for pre-cut up fruits in the produce section. It only takes about a minute to cut up an onion and you get to hone your culinary skills.

Of course, if the only way you are going to break down and eat a veggie or fruit is to buy it already cut up, then I guess that’s better than not eating something healthy. I personally can’t afford to do that, but to each his own.

I buy pre-sliced mango because cutting mango is annoying and the price is comparable. But anything else and I would feel like a tool. Plus the longer you wait to cut into a produce, the better it will taste.

Should have added this in my last comment, but I feel like you’re not just paying to save time, but to save your hands from smelling like onions. Even the stainless steel trick is only temporary. The smell keeps coming back. I could smell onion on my hands for at least five days after I chopped them last time, and I’m not exactly a slouch in the hygiene department. To some people, that might be worth paying a lot more.

@Ben Popken: tis true. we will use a half vidalia for say, spaghetti or bratwursts, and put the other half in a ziplock, where its fine for a couple of weeks. i am sure to push the air out of the bag. and its always just as crisp and yummy as it was when freshly peeled.

I can’t believe no one recognizes that these are Vidalia onions, which are highly valued for their flavor and can only come from specific areas of Georgia (you can read more on Wikipedia). So you’re paying for the onion itself as well as the convenience.

If you have ever had Vialias you’ll understand the difference between these and the generic onions from Fresh Direct.

also, you onion-sensitive wimps (like myself), if you rinse your knife in water, along with the peeled onion, its not quite as bad. i try and avoid any other gimmicky tips, and its quite tolerable that way.

I’ve gotten the pre-cut onions in the past, but when you don’t use them all and/or forget about them, it’s not such a good thing. So I either forgo onions in a recipe, or I just suck it up and cut up an onion.

For the very frugal, onions are ridiculously easy to grow in a backyard garden. Very nice go to pull up your own when you want one! (But I still make my husband cut it up.) You could probably even grow them in a windowbox.

(And the reason they keep so long, even cut-up, is that they’re root veggies, and those all keep a surprisingly long time.)

@freshyill: The same thing happens to me, but not to my husband. If I TOUCH a raw onion, I reek of onion for 5 to 7 days, and it’s terrible. He washes his hands and the smell disappears. I guess it must be personal skin chemistry. (My skin is also slightly irritated by the raw onion, I’ve always sort-of wondered if that’s related — is yours?) I’ve tried not only the stainless steel trick, but every crazy-ass remedy available, up to and including washing my hands in rum. Then they smelled like rum and onions.

Normally I would rag on anyone who eats onions however coming from a mexican background (on my moms side) and a polish background (my dads side) I am surrounded by onion fanatics from south texas all the way up to michigan & canada. Furthermore I must sa…….Oh god how can you people eat onions?? lol.

I’m all about pre-prepared foods for cooking for myself. I’m not going to use the rest of the onion, so comparing the price per pound or price per onion doesn’t make any difference to me. If for $1.73 I can get the exact amount of food that I need, compared to spending $1.99 to waste half of it, I’d rather spend on the pre-pack and know that someone else got the other half of my veggie. Plus, they sell stuff like peppers & onions too, so you get 2 or 3 different peppers and some onions in there as well. If the extra would go to waste before you could use it anyway, it makes sense not to buy all those veggies, and then have to worry about storage.

Good. Fucking. Post. The great industrialization of food in this country left the vegetables behind. My mom is an amazing cook, but god did I hate her veggies till I discovered the joys of the farmers market (or greenmarket now that I live in NYC). Frozen, and nuked till all flavor was either gone, or nasty.

As a tangent to that though, onions that fairway has chopped isn’t exactly a problem with the industrialization of food. This is probably an onion from their regular source, ran through some kind of chopping machine. On the grand scale of processes detrimental to food, the environment and the American culture of cooking and eating this ranks pretty harmless. Hell, if this was a locally grown, organic onion to start with, it’s probably better quality and better for the world than a whole onion shipped in from Mexico.

So it’s a luxury, but it’s better to be actually cooking with an onion (probably locally grown) that’s pre sliced at the grocery store than going out to eat, or using some kind of crap from a can.

Another aside Fairway would be perfect with a bit better organics/local produce section. Unless it’s better at the other fairways, I’ve only shopped at the harlem store.

@rjhiggins: vidalia onions are pretty much like all the other sweet onions out there (maui, walla walla, the ones from texas and the imported ones). they are “sweet” because they have a lower sulfur content and a higher water content than the regular brown storage onions. they also tend to have less flavor and be more watery than a traditional brown onion when you cook them.

Vidalias are excellent, but sometimes you need an onion to be an onion. That missing sulfur lacks in certain dishes.

I didn’t know there was frozen, diced onion (don’t get down that aisle too often), but it sounds like it would be awesome for mirepoix or something (the base, for, like, everything).

Overall, the quality of most flash-frozen or IQF veggies is quite good, definitely better than canned (even home canned), definitely better than buy-fresh-and-freeze-yourself, and almost as good as fresh (as long as it’s not pre-cooked and frozen).

It’s just my husband and I at home (so I only cook for us two) and I still go thru onions like crazy. I do a lot of my cooking with them because they are a great flavoring/aromatic agent (along with carrot and celery). So even if they are not a noticeable, main part of the dish, they’re still there in one way or another.

When saving a partly used onion in the fridge I do try to keep as much air out of the bag. Otherwise the onion gets kind of waterlogged and mealy, at least on the outer layer. I can remove that layer, but then that means less onion :)

The stainless steel trick is much better for garlic than for onions. After I mince garlic I rub my hands on the faucet, and the smell is gone instantly. I don’t know why this happens, but I do know it’s not really valid for onions.

@balthisar: “I didn’t know there was frozen, diced onion (don’t get down that aisle too often),”

Frozen bagged veggies section, usually right next to the peas (since they’re usually alphabetized). We mostly cook with frozen chopped or with fresh onions pulled minutes before from our own backyard, and if you’re cooking them, there’s not a real flavor difference between the frozen ones and the fresh-out-of-the-dirt ones.

@balthisar: I agree to an extent on the quality of some frozen veggies (definitely better than canned), but I have to stress “some”. I tried frozen broccoli just last night and was not at all happy. But things like corn and peas, or a mixed-medley type of thing, definitely has its uses.

@ekthesy: A good garlic trick that I’ve learned is to put the cloves in the microwave for 20 seconds before I peel them, and the skin comes right off, which usually prevents a lot of the smell from getting on my hand in the first place.

The big issue here is that it’s very probable that the onion you received is not a Vidalia and more likely a Peruvian sweet. The Vidalia harvest ends in mid June and commercial supplies are currently not available. Commercial sales stopped in October making it almost impossible that the onion you purchased is a True Vidalia. Here is the problem with cut produce. It looses it’s identity and only lab testing can prove which actual variety of product you received. I smell mislabeling as the real issue here. All experienced fresh produce personel can tell a fruit or vegetable variety visually, but certainly not if it’s precut. So either you got scamed or are eating a product that is 6 months old.

Oh any why not have it both ways? Cut up 2-4 onions, tupperware them, then have “ready made” chopped onions when needed. I’ve done this with onions, peppers, black olives and other random veggies that I know I need to use up.

@Eyebrows McGee: If you smell of onion, try rubbing your hands against stainless steel. When you stop laughing at the absurdity of it, you’ll realize that it actually works (especially on fish smells).

I usually chop leftover onion and put it in a fridge container for using in other stuff, but we go through a ton of food. Or chop your own and put them in the freezer. We have a cheap food processor for when I am feeling really lazy but good knives help so it really isn’t a chore.

The already hard boiled eggs at the store and small bags of baby carrots are a lifesaver if I need something to eat while running errands. Otherwise I don’t buy pre-processed stuff.

I lived in the Netherlands for a year and a half, and they are way ahead of us in the prepackaged vegetables stakes. What I wouldn’t give to be able to buy bags of tiny, pre-trimmed baby brussels sprouts (spruitjes) here!
I don’t mind chopping onions, but what I found recently that I loved was fresh pre-peeled whole garlic cloves, at Metropolitan Market (greater Seattle). It was $1.50 or so for probably two heads’ worth. I made everything with extra garlic for days and days.

@Eyebrows McGee: Get one of those OXO choppers (the kind they sell in Bed Bath and Beyond for like $9). You just slam the whole onion under it, pop the top up and down a few times, and voila! Chopped onion that you never touched directly (and you can use a knife to scoop them up and transfer them directly to your food. I love this, because I also hate the onion hands.

Also, I agree that usually frozen/canned/prepared fruits and veggies suck compared to their fresh counterparts, but I also agree that if they’re going into a cooked dish (not used as a side dish on their own), the frozen stuff holds up well flavor-wise in cooking. I usually use frozen asparagus or peas in my risotto, for example, and I can’t say I can detect a difference when I use fresh (could be all the wine…hmm).

In the long run, it’d be more cost-effective to buy a small food processor. I got a high-quality one and it’s definitely paid for itself in chopped onion and minced garlic prices, not to mention all the other stuff.

@Eyebrows McGee: That’s actually really clever. I’ll have to remember that next time I want half a cup of something.

@BigNutty: Because all the people who whine and complain about Consumerist doing “frivolous” articles don’t pay any attention to the “serious” ones when they do show up, so Ben can tell that they don’t mean it.

Go to the supermarket and buy onions for $.99 a pound and cut them yourself. Then add the $1.89 a pound savings to your beer budget and drink something that doesn’t have to be the coldest beer in the world to be remotely swallowable.

It won’t work if you want to use them uncooked, but I always dice up 6-10 at a time, spread them on plastic wrap on a cookie sheet, freeze them, and then crumble them into a bag that I keep in the freezer. Saves a ton of time when I’m cooking and I can use the cheaper bagged or bulk onions. I’ve also done this with celery and green pepper, works for cooking but not for salads.

I’ve also gotten cheap bananas and watermelon, pureed them and frozen them in ice cube trays then stored in a bag for future smoothies. There are lots of ways to store that marked-down produce, even if you can’t eat it all fresh.

@headon: i know what a sweet onion looks like. i went to college in a region known for sweet onions and i’ve eaten them fresh in the middle of harvest season. they are great to eat, but they DO have a different flavor-profile and DO have a higher water content than the brown onions you typically buy (that can be stored over the winter because of their lower water content).

precut onions, not so much, I could definitely see myself buying precut butternut squash. I love them but they are so hard to cut and peel and the last time I made butternut squash soup I almost stab myself. That is the type of cooking luxury I can get behind…

I gutted and replaced my kitchen this spring. Then got a famous German-brand (I’m not a shill) 10″ chef’s knife. Turns out, the kitchen was a waste of thousands of dollars — all I needed was the knife! (well, hem, haw, and a little bit of technique, thank you, Alton Brown).

I always would use the food processor, but it was always a pain in the behind due to cleaning, drying, and storing again. The knife gets a quick sponge, quick dry, and back in the drawer. I can’t remember the last time I used it for chopping or dicing.

I still prefer the garlic press to mincing, though.

Also, in combination with the knife the other, best partner is my cheap, Ikea cutting mats. They’re flexible, conform to the sink, and dirt cheap. This is handy to avoid cross contamination. While I love the performance of my huge wooden cutting board, it has some of the same laziness problems as the food processor.

We like to buy the small (not pearl, not cambray) bags of white onions at the Mexican grocer, so leftovers isn’t normally a concern. When I want a yellow onion or Vidalia, the leftover lasts long enough to use in a baggie in the fridge.

Now I’ve got to make a decision, inspired by a lot of you folks above: is it wasteful or advantageous to cut up mass quantities of onion and mirepoix to freeze, in order to use at will? It’d be a lot easier! I groan at the use of so many baggies, though.

My goodness, so much scorn for the pre-cut onions! I bet you anything that a bunch of the naysayers buy those baby carrots so they don’t have to peel the big ones. Is that prepared-veggie double standard?

I buy pre-cut onions because I’m so sensitive to the cry-factor that even being in the same room where they’re being cut makes me bawl.

@waldy: funny you mention that. I buy the “baby” carrots all the time for lunch. For Thanksgiving, though, I bought a huge bag of natural carrots, and chopped up the leftovers for lunch. They were noticeably — really, really noticeably — much more delicious. I probably knew that in my secret heart, but the convenience and all that. I think I’ll buy the whole carrots from here on out.

Baby carrots are way tastier than whole, cut up carrots. The carrots they sell in the grocery store are usually horse carrots that taste like crap. I’ll pay for the convenient baby carrots…when they’re on sale.

Well, if baby carrots are actually just normal carrots peeled and rounded…since there is a lot of effort to peel and round regular carrots, I’m okay with buying baby carrots. My rabbit eats carrots and loves them but because they’re fattening for him, he only eats one or two baby carrots a week. Also, I use them in salads and soups.

What the heck people? Don’t any of you own a food processor, or a chopper? A relative of mine gave me a gift called Deluxe Chopper by GE about 2 yrs. ago. I love it! Takes all the tears out of chopping onions. And, it takes all of about 5 seconds to chop what I need. Clean up is easy too. I guess I just don’t understand what everybody is complaining about when we’ve got all these contraptions out there to make life easier.

Statistically speaking, pre-chopped onions are more likely to be contaminated with delicious microbes. Not only only due to the greater surface-to-volume ratio (chopped food has more exposed food surface to receive the microbes than the food as a whole item, especially one wrapped in a peel you throw away when you chop it yourself) but also because, well, who cut the onion and under what hygienic conditions? Especially in Red Hook :) — I’m kidding. I like Red hook. :) :)

Onions aren’t the only food item like that. I was in Wally World the other day. A full size can or corn cost $.01 more than the half-size (single serving) can with the pull-top. – Twice as much corn for a penny more!As much as I like to save money, and the fact that I am single and live alone, this means I often have to eat the same meal for 3 days straight.

BTW- just because Vidalias are out of season doesn’t mean this is a scam. Under the proper storage conditions, they will keep for months.

Buying pre-cut onions is the ultimate in laziness. It takes less than 1 minute to skin and cut 2 whole onions. Some things I can understand, like a bag of mixed greens or something, but pre-cut onions shouldn’t even exist.